First Fuchsia Flowers

It had been a couple weeks since I had been to our home in Laguna Beach and as usual there was a lot going on in the garden. One of the nicest things was this 'Voodoo' standard fuchsia in bloom in what used to be a shady area in the garden. I only have a couple of the fancy hybrids left in the garden. Most of them have succumbed to the awful fuchsia mite and I have replaced them with the more native ones that are more pest and disease resistant. Of course those are periwinkles (vinca major) blooming at its base and if you look closely in the upper left hand corner (click to enlarge photo) you will see my yellow clivias about to bloom.

Of course these are all shade plants and they are typically protected from the sun by a large myoporum tree overhead. The past year has been a bad year for myoporums in California due to a thrip that has attacked them all along the coast. (For more information see the UC IPM Website). My tree has very few leaves left on it and I was going to have it taken down because I thought it was a goner, but my tree guy suggested trimming it back and waiting to see if it can just "grow through" the infestation since it is a dominate feature in the garden. Everything below it has been growing like crazy with the extra light they have been receiving during the winter, but we'll have to see how they hold out during the long summer.